Oak Plains Academy

About This School

Oak Plains Academy is located in Ashland City, TN. It is a private, special education school that serves 47 students in grades 1-12. Oak Plains Academy is coed (school has male and female students) and is nonsectarian in orientation. The school belongs to the National Association of Private Special Education Centers.

In 2010, Oak Plains Academy had 16 students for every full-time equivalent teacher. The Tennessee average is 15 students per full-time equivalent teacher.

Students Per Teacher (2010)

Oak Plains Academy Reviews

Great Place

By Christie, a Parent on Jun 9, 2014

My son was out of control and also needed mental help. He has been there 5 months and I can't believe the difference. They have turned him around. The staff if awesome. It is no non sense that is structured. I can't say enough good things about it.

Abusive and Disgusting.

By a Former Student on Mar 23, 2014

If you're looking at reviews for residential treatment centers I can assume that you care about your child. Facilities like oak plains exist due to a demand from parents' that just need a place to pawn off their problem children when they become too much to bear. These places are not for resolving various issues that your child may have, despite what the advertisements may say, or what a referring psychiatric hospital doctor may tell you. These places are for containing children that the juvenile court system or a psychiatric hospital have deemed unfit to live in general society, for various reasons.

I was a resident at Oak Plains Academy for a month and a half two years ago. There were numerous occasions where I directly witnessed the Mental Health Associates (or orderlies, which more accurately describes their duties) physically abusing residents. I, along with another resident, were ordered by an MHA to assault a younger resident, because said resident had "bothered" the MHA by asking to change rooms, because he was being abused by his current roommates. While I reported the various cases of physical abuse to my therapist, to my knowledge no action was taken. There was constant antagonistic behavior from the MHAs towards residents. On one occasion one employee decided to publicly (and incorrectly) announce to all of the male residents that one resident was bulimic. He went out of his way to accuse this resident of having an eating disorder, and later that day admitted that he made it up as a joke. This type of behavior was standard amongst the MHAs. On another occasion an MHA had a very vocal and vulgar argument with a resident during dinner, in front of all of the male residents. After a few minutes of yelling back and forth, and ignoring orders from his shift superior to stop telling the resident to "fight him", said MHA flung open the cafeteria door and stormed out angrily. Only to return a few minutes later, with no repercussions for his actions. I personally was physically threatened by the MHAs multiple times.

The physical quality of the facility itself is also abysmal. During my stay, the bathroom walls constantly had marks of feces on them. There were two toilets for the main male resident housing. One of which had a door, about 4 feet off of the ground, allowing clear sight into the stall (Under a former name, Chad Youth Enhancement Center, a male resident was raped in a bathroom, while I'm not sure if it was in this area, sexual behavior between the younger residents was also common. A very young autistic resident vocally announced that his roommate had been raping him, and to my knowledge no action was taken. The MHAs on duty that day said that "He's probably just lying."). The other toilet was covered by a torn up curtain. The showers were all in the same bathroom, with their own individual curtains. These showers were also of terrible quality, multiple times I went to take a shower and the floor would have a stagnant puddle of urine from the last resident's shower, since the drain would not function correctly.

As said in the last paragraph, this facility was not always called Oak Plains Academy. Under the older name, Chad Youth Enhancement Center, 2 residents were killed in improper restraints (http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/handle-with-care/Content?oid=1195422). While I'm not 100% certain if any/all management/employees were retained during the transition between the two names, in my experience this article accurately describes how OPA was 2 years ago.

While I suppose you can be certain that your child won't starve to death here, they will most likely receive absolutely zero positive "treatment", and will most likely never be the same after their stay in this disgusting and abusive facility.

I had a child there & this place is not where he needed to go to. He got little help (no change). I dont recommend this place to no one. I believe this child is steal in trouble & getting close to being 18 yrs old. So what can parent do,but live with. The system is broken.